Public Seminars Term 4, 2016 (July 7 2016)
THURSDAYS, JULY-SEP, P152 LECTURE THEATRE, Dunedin School of Art, Riego St, except where stated otherwise. Times are included with each event.
School of Art at Otago Polytechnic Public Research Seminars, Studio Critiques and Postgraduate Workshops, Term Three, 2016
The program is supported by FRED STAUB OPEN ART.
The Challenges of Participation: Towards an (Applied) Social Art and Design Practice
THURS 13 OCTOBER, 12.00 -1.00PM, P152 LECTURE THEATRE, RIEGO ST, DUNEDIN
Concepts such as ‘social innovation, social media, social capital, social art or social design’ have become pervasive in the past years. In this seminar, Mònica Gaspar discusses how craft and design have reacted to the so-called ‘social turn’ and which strategies have been developed when it comes to redefining a sense of collectivity.
Mònica Gaspar is a curator, writer and lecturer based in Zürich (Switzerland). She focuses on contemporary craft and design as critical practices, and has also engaged in art jewellery, curating, writing and lecturing at several international conferences and institutions. Currently, she works at the Institute for Critical Theory at the Zürich University of the Arts.
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PUBLIC SYMPOSIUM - ART & FUTURE: ENERGY, CLIMATE, CULTURES
14 - 15 OCTOBER, P152 LECTURE THEATRE, RIEGO ST, DUNEDIN – see programme for times on each day
Art has always had to do with identity — with kin and class, with gods and demons, and also with aspirations and fears for the future. Instead of leaving the future to fate, Post-Enlightenment Modernity has often cast science and technology as tools to craft a future, a future better than any past, conquering disease and deprivation. Yet the positive outlook of the 1960s has been shaken by an overabundance — of people, of goods, of waste, of environmental destruction. At this moment, when confidence is being eroded by despair as the utopian project is threatened by disaster, it may be an opportunity to assess interlocked themes, the conflicting knowledges and values that give rise to our current alarm and the part art might play in their elucidation and unravelment.
Download Programme or contact Peter.Stupples@op.ac.nz
An exhibition will be running in association with the Art and Future event.
Exhibition Dates : 10 - 21 October, Dunedin School of Art Gallery, Open 10am - 4pm daily
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Insecurities: Responses in Contemporary Art and Architecture to the Current Refugee Crisis
THURS 20 OCT, 12.00-1.00PM, P152 LECTURE THEATRE, RIEGO ST, DUNEDIN
This seminar presents a range of registers in which contemporary art and architecture are responding to the current world-wide refugee crisis. These registers range from ’fugitive actions’ to ‘emergency architectures’ to an ‘aesthetics of fragility’ and more. The seminar includes references to the current exhibition entitled “Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter” at MoMA in New York.
Dr. Leoni Schmidt is Head of the Dunedin School of Art at Otago Polytechnic . She supervises candidates in the visual arts postgraduate programmes and leads academic quality in the School of Art. Her own research focuses on responses in contemporary art and architecture to issues of migration and – more recently – to the current refugee crisis in the world.
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Observing Matter in Art
THURS 27 OCT, 12.00-1.00PM, P152 LECTURE THEATRE, RIEGO ST, DUNEDIN
Greg Minissale is particularly interested in how relatively unformed matter, rough-hewn or unfinished, is awkwardly lodged in otherwise quite well-formed artworks or objects. The psychology involved in observing this kind of matter in art takes on extraordinary properties that require different levels of description.
Dr. Gregory Minissale is Head of Art History at the University of Auckland. He is author of The Psychology of Contemporary Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
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Field Notes
THURS 3 NOV, 12.00-1.00PM, P152 LECTURE THEATRE, RIEGO ST, DUNEDIN
Rebecca Baumann’s practice has largely been driven by a formal and conceptual exploration of materials, through which she has interrogated ideas around colour, light and time. During this seminar she will discuss her recent work, and the development of the project she is undertaking as visiting artist- in-residence at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.
Rebecca Baumann is an Australian artist whose work spans sculpture, installation and performance. She has exhibited internationally, with recent exhibitions including Set In Motion, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth; New Romance, MCA Sydney; and WA Focus: Rebecca Baumann, Art Gallery of Western Australia (all 2016). Her work is included in public and private collections internationally.
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Cooke’s Endeavour in New Zealand: an Ecocritical Exploration of the New Zealand - Paintings of Barrie Cooke
THURS 10 NOV, 12.00-1.00PM, P152 LECTURE THEATRE, RIEGO ST, DUNEDIN
The artwork of Barrie Cooke (1931-2014) over a number of decades enables the observation of a growing concern over environmental issues. He was the first artist in Ireland to address ecological threat in his art. Disillusioned by the destruction of the lake ecosystems of his locality, Cooke began to travel to locations he associated with paradisiacal purity, particularly to the South Island of New Zealand. This seminar adopts an ecocritical analytical approach in examining how his work reveals his dismayed reaction in response to emerging evidence of devastating pollution in his adopted paradise, and a growing concern for the implications for the future.
Dr. Yvonne Scott is the Director of Trinity College Irish Art Research Centre in Dublin and the Program Director for the MPhil in Irish Art History at the same institution. She explores agendas in the representation of landscape, space and place, investigating landscape imagery in a variety of locations and periods. She engages with a range of disciplinary approaches to interpretation, from philosophy to cultural geography. She is currently also involved in the Royal Irish Academy Irish Art Project.
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How do Paintings Function?
THURS 1 DEC, 12.00-1.00PM, P152 LECTURE THEATRE, RIEGO ST, DUNEDIN
James Cousins’ practice pivots around questions of how a painting might function: how do we understand the status of an image? What systems guide our understanding? What processes could be used to disrupt these assumptions? Cousins’ recent works call into question the certainty of representational conventions and create a fresh encounter with what painting might be while provoking a heightened consciousness of the very act of looking.
James Cousins graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland. His work has been included in many exhibitions in New Zealand and abroad. Recent exhibitions include Restless Idiom, a survey exhibition of Cousins' work, curated by Ioana Gordon-Smith and held at Te Uru, Waitakere Contemporary Gallery and Necessary Distraction, A Painting Show, Auckland Art Gallery, Toi o Tāmaki, curated by Natasha Conland.
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All listed events are open to the public – all welcome, no RSVP and no charge.
In accordance with the Otago Polytechnic MoU with local Kai Tahu Runaka, we observe tikanga in our lecture and gallery spaces and thus request all attendees to refrain from eating and drinking during events (except water) and from sitting on tables, thank you.
All enquiries to Head: Dunedin School of Art leoni.schmidt@op.ac.nz except where otherwise indicated.